VIDEO: Normally when you hear about firefighters and car wrecks, it’s the firefighter who is responding to the incident, not getting into them. While Washington County firefighter Chandler Fishack has completed numerous extrications, he also has a knack for taking cars apart to turn them into demolition derby cars.
- PUB DATE: 7/20/2021 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: WDVM-TV 25 Hagerstown

Cheers filled the air as Steve Hines drove the Belmar First Aid Squad's 1938 Ford ambulance one last time. As Hines pressed on the gas Friday, the sirens sung. He gave the 83-year-old ambulance as much gas as it would take to accelerate onto a truck that would drive it approximately 650 miles to the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan — the ambulance's new home.
- PUB DATE: 7/20/2021 12:00:00 AM - SOURCE: Asbury Park Press - Metered Site

Get used to the hot and moderately smoky conditions that hit the Spokane area on Monday because a red flag warning until Wednesday means that smoke and wildfire concerns aren’t going away. Smoke from the massive 300,000-acre Bootleg fire in southern Oregon and from smaller fires in southeast Washington rolled into Spokane on Monday, bringing air quality levels to the moderate range, according to Spokane Regional Clean Air Agency.
- PUB DATE: 7/19/2021 9:51:12 PM - SOURCE: Spokane Spokesman-Review - Metered Site

The town of Montverde, Florida, donated a 2000 Pierce Contender 1250 GPM fire engine to the Hawkins County Volunteer Fireman’s Association, reports Kingsport Times News.

The HCVFA then made the decision to place the fire truck with the Goshen Valley Volunteer Fire Department. The GVVFD paid for delivery costs and used the gift to replace a 45-year-old fire truck.

The truck also included some tools, appliances, supply hose, and and air packs minus the air bottles. The truck is currently being serviced and tested.

The department has been in service since 1992 and operates two engines and two tankers from two fire stations.

According to a report from Reading Eagle, retired Reading, Pennsylvania, firefighter Bill Stoudt Sr. spotted a grey pickup truck turning onto South Fifth and Laurel Streets, pulling a trailer carrying a familiar friend—a 1931 Buffalo 1,000-gallon-per-minute pumper engine Stoudt Jr. drove as a newly hired firefighter in 1963 until it was replaced by the city in 1966.

The owner of the engine, Peter West of Virginia, recently sold it to the Reading Area Firefighters Museum.

Stoudt walked around the vintage truck, admiring the piece he spent three years of his career. He then climbed aboard after it was started up, instructing West where to drive it next. West then pulled the engine in front of the Liberty Fire Station and prepared to back it into its original bay. Stoudt continued to instruct West on the do’s and don’ts of driving the Buffalo.

The museum discovered that the engine would be put up for sale and knew immediately it had to get it. The museum will not divulge who paid for it and what it cost. However, museum Bill Rehr said that an anonymous donor bought the truck and donated it to the museum, noting that the donor said he “wanted it to come home.”

The city of Reading bought the engine for the Liberty Fire Company (LFC) in 1931. It was retired in 1966 and later served at the Reading Regional Airport. It then went into service in Robesonia. A private citizen bought it, and it was eventually sold to West, a fire engine collector. West then conducted an off-the-frame restoration, making the fire engine look as if it just rolled off the factory floor.

Rehr started working for the LFC in 1959 and said he remembers seeing the Buffalo engine at fires. He said the museum will keep the Buffalo as West delivered it.

The engine will be on display at the Reading Area Firefighters Museum, located at 501 S. Fifth Street.